


Strength and Weakness

by Phoenix_of_Athena



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Injury, Brotherly Love, Canon - Manga, Captivity, Character Death, Chronic Illness, Desperation, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Real Ciel Phantomhive, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, That One Month, Whump, and all that it entails, hopelessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29983029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_of_Athena/pseuds/Phoenix_of_Athena
Summary: ...It's a genetic Illness, that his younger brother has; he knows that.  And his brother is histwin, so their bodies areidentical.  Yet somehow...somehow Ciel never imagined he'd get sick.Ciel is weak; he’s weaker than his brother, now; shaky when he stands.  His body is always shivering, and his brother presses soft hands against his forehead and holds him upright as he coughs.  Ciel looks down at grimy hands, at the crusty trails of scabs on his arms, and thinks that it’s no wonder he got sick here.  He shudders under the warm drape of his brother’s arm, and listens to the easy glide of breath in that other set ofidenticallungs.Or: During their month of captivity, r!Ciel develops the same sickness that his mother and brother had before him.  It changes his outlook....and it changes his brother's too.  It strips away the facade of hope that they've been clinging too; it strips away the lies, and what they're left with is....
Relationships: Ciel Phantomhive & Real Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Strength and Weakness

**Author's Note:**

> Yo, my asthma's been bad lately, so here's a fic idea that I've been holding onto for _years_. I wrote it at 4 am last night. Is that going to become a thing? Kuro fic at 4 am in the morning? Haha.
> 
> Anyways, heed the warnings, folks. This ain't pretty.

Ciel doesn’t believe that they’ll get out. He wants to—he wishes that he did—but he doesn’t. But when his brother looks at him like that…small and weak and frantic with the terror that rises up to choke him so often…how can Ciel not pretend for him?

“It’s okay,” he says, voice rough and quiet. “I’m here.” He dredges up a smile, as reassuring as he can make it, and his brother, his younger brother believes in Ciel _so much_ that he’ll take comfort in a hopeless lie…or maybe he’s pretending for Ciel, too.

Ciel holds his brother’s hand as they curl up next to each other on the cold metal floor of the cage. He can see his breath misting in front of him. It’s no wonder at all, he thinks, breathing harshly through pain and wishing for even the barest warmth of socks, that so many of the others die down here, on their own. 

Sleep doesn’t come easy, though he wishes that it would. It’s the only escape that they get, these days, and he’d spend his whole time here asleep if he could. Sometimes even the thought of his brother isn’t enough to stop him wishing for it. Just to sleep, and for all the pain of reality to go away.

He’s in a lot of pain tonight. He thinks—he thinks that they’ve done something to his ribs. He doesn’t _remember_ much of today—it could have been a hit, or a fall, or large hands that held him hard enough to bruise. He doesn’t remember it, but he must have received some kind of injury. His chest feels tight and painful, and he breathes jaggedly though clenched teeth. Beside him, his brother’s face has smoothed out, peaceful in slumber like he hasn’t been while awake in _so long_ , and Ciel can’t help it: he starts to cry. They’re small, hitching tears at first; quiet, unobtrusive. But then a sob catches _wrong_ in the bottom of his throat, and he’s scrambling to sit up, coughs _tearing_ at his chest, and it _hurts._ It tastes like sickness and a little bit like iron in his mouth, and he’s bent over double, wheezing harshly into his knees. His brother’s hands are on his back, rubbing, sitting him up. 

_“Slow down,”_ his brother hisses. “Hold a breath. Stop—stop it before it builds into something worse. There—”

Ciel catches a cough in his lungs and holds it, and it hurts, and it stutters out in little shaking chokes instead of the monster that was trying to escape.

“Breathe with me,” whispers his brother, low and intense. “Match me _slowly.”_ And Ciel does, and it hurts, but finally he can breathe again. 

Eventually he whispers, “What was _that?”_ He receives a fearful, knowing expression in return. 

It’s a quiet voice that replies:

“You sounded like me, when I get sick.”

Ciel feels his stomach drop like a rock. He’s scared.

Ciel doesn’t get better; if anything, he gets _worse._ The attacks come frequently, at night in the freezing damp where they’re kept when they’re not being…played with. As if their suffering is a _game._ And Ciel is so angry, so furious at _everything,_ but now he’s furious at his own body too. He was healthy until now. He was strong! He was _always_ able to run and play outside in the sun. His younger brother, who he helped look out for, was the one who was sickly. That was…that was just how it _was_. It’s how his world was fit together, in familiar puzzle pieces. But now…well, it’s been obvious from the beginning that he isn’t strong. He’s powerless and helpless, he _knows_ that. He just doesn’t need _this_ reminder _too._ He doesn’t need to be _depending_ on his younger brother to help him get though bouts of illness, when Ciel’s supposed to be reassuring _him_.

If there was ever a chance that his younger brother believed him about escaping, it’s surely gone now. He can’t even _breathe._ How is he supposed to get them both out, whole? What must his brother feel, watching him fall apart…?

Ciel wheezes miserably, huddled into his brother’s side in the dark and cold and damp. He wants his parents. He wants to _go home._ He feels small.

Time passes. It passes in crawl of pain and shame and bitterness. Ciel is weak; he’s weaker than his brother, now; shaky when he stands. His body is always shivering, and his brother presses soft hands against his forehead and holds him upright as he coughs. Ciel looks down at grimy hands, at the crusty trails of scabs on his arms, and thinks that it’s no wonder he got sick here. He shudders under the warm drape of his brother’s arm, and listens to the easy glide of breath in that other set of _identical_ lungs.

“We’re not going to make it out, are we.” 

His brother’s voice is steady, dull. 

“They’re going to kill us, just like the others. Ciel…” Ciel looks at his brother, pulls back and struggles to sit upright despite the aching exhaustion pulling at his bones. “…I don’t want them to kill us,” his brother says, and that ugly apathy has changed to something dark and angry. “I won’t give them _that_ , too.”

“Oh,” Ciel whispers. _“Oh.”_

Both of the twins are well-read. They grew up on adventure stories that weren’t always pretty. They were naive, the both of them, but they weren’t completely ignorant. They know some stories about war, and they know of the deep, human rage at captivity and the choices that prisoners sometimes make. They knew of them even _before_ they ended up here. 

“…Okay.”

Ciel lets himself be a distraction; that’s what he’s good for, now. He hacks a lung up, right in the middle of the revelry, and its easy with that painful tickle always waiting in the bottom of his throat. It draws attention. His brother steals one of the knives. It’s just a little one, because the monsters don’t want to do any _real, permanent damage_ to their playthings; it’s easily concealed in his brother’s baggy shorts. 

In the cage, they stare at it. It’s silver, bright and clean like nothing else is down here. It _gleams_ like gems and precious metal, their stolen treasure. Ciel pricks his finger on the tip.

“You could have…you could have stabbed one of them,” he says, even though it wasn’t an option, not if they wanted to get away with _this._ It’s a nice thought though, and they both smile over it. 

“If only,” sighs his brother with a wistful little smile. “If I could kill even _one_ of them….”

“…Yeah.”

They look down at the knife. It’s so…small. Thin and cold and just a thing; impersonal. It doesn’t yet feel real to Ciel, despite the bead of blood pooling on his fingertip.

“Do….” He swallows _hard._ Oh, God. He’s scared, he’s so scared. “Do you want me to go first? Or would you rather…I…I can sit with you while you….”

His younger brother worries his lip. He looks at Ciel, then back at the knife. He starts to cry.

“I—I—I don’t _kno—o—ow.”_

Ciel reaches out and holds his hand.

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “I’m here with you. We’re together, and we’re…we’re not going to let them…we’re _stopping_ them. From hurting us, _ever again._ And that man who _bought us._ He was so excited. Just think: he’s…not going to be _excited_ _anymore_. Right?”

“Ri—right.” His brother picks it up, and it looks larger than before in his small, bony fingers; larger than it had in the hand of a masked man. “I’ll…I want…can you…just _be_ with me?”

“Of course.”

His little brother holds the knife awkwardly, and makes a shallow cut down the length of his forearm. 

“How….” 

He doesn’t finish; he only bites his lip, and then with a sudden fury, stabs down into the crook of his elbow, before dragging towards his wrist. His teeth are clenched, his eyes shut. 

“Is that…deep enough?” he chokes out, and Ciel swallows, and looks at the blood, and can’t imagine that it isn’t. It’s…a lot. A _lot._

“I think—I think—I _think so.”_

He breathes. He wheezes.

“It _hurts,”_ his brother sobs, and Ciel presses a kiss onto his grimy forehead. 

“I know,” he murmurs through the hitching of his breaths, through the tears that clog his throat. “I know, it’s okay, I’m here, it’ll be okay.” He doesn’t want to watch. He can’t. He won’t. He takes the knife from where his brother dropped it, and he keeps talking. He whispers the same soothing reassurances over and over; he drags the small knife sharply down his forearm, and he doesn’t know when his brother stopped breathing. In the dark and in the cold, he doesn’t know when he stops, either.

…he does know when he wakes up, to _clean_ and _bright_ and _yellow-green eyes_ in a _familiar face._

Supposedly this is a punishment, but it feels more like a reward.

**Author's Note:**

> ...let me know what you think? <3  
> And if i've missed anything i should tag, please lmk.


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